by Jessie Cooke
“Damn!” She turned and looked at the handful of regulars who were standing around, watching the show. “Does anyone have a car they can take us to the hospital in?” She didn’t want to call an ambulance. Dillon didn’t have medical insurance and that would cost a fortune.
The customers all looked at each other. Kat knew it was her causing their reluctance. The men had all continued to come into the bar once she came back home and took over for an incapable Dillon…but they were all afraid of her. She thought it was ridiculous, grown men afraid of a little woman…just because she had a little temper. She hadn’t killed anyone…yet. She folded her arms and sighed.
“I got the wife’s Chevy,” Vince, a construction foreman who spent more time in the bar than he did with “the wife,” said hesitantly as he held up his keys. Kat had already served him three beers and a couple of shots.
“You’re as drunk as Dillon.”
“I’ll stay here, you can drive,” he said as he handed her the keys. Kat took them and looked over the four patrons of the bar.
“Can I trust y’all not to rob us blind while I’m gone?” The four drunks feigned innocent looks and Vince said:
“I’ll keep an eye on things for you, Kat.” Kat sighed and looked down at Dillon. He was still unconscious, so she didn’t have much choice.
“One of y’all help Hunter get him to the car.”
Vince went over and grabbed Dillon’s legs. Hunter took hold of him under the arms and they loaded him into the backseat of Vince’s wife’s car. Kat wondered if the woman would be surprised to find blood and sweat all over the seats the next morning, or if twenty years of being married to a drunk had left her anything to be surprised about.
“You need me to go with you?” Hunter asked her.
“Nah, I got this, thanks for your help.” Kat wouldn’t mind taking Hunter home with her and getting naked, but she didn’t want to worry about making small talk with the guy while they waited around the hospital. Forced conversation only seemed to put a damper on a good fuck, if you asked her. She started the car and looked over her shoulder at Dillon. His head was still bleeding and his eyes were closed, but he was moaning, so at least he wasn’t dead. Dillon might not believe it, but Kat was glad about that.
She drove to the hospital as quickly as she could, watching closely for cops. The last thing she needed was an expensive ticket to pay. They were in dire straits as it was, and as much as she’d like to blame Dillon’s illness and the crappy way he ran the bar before she got there, she knew that she had to shoulder some of the blame.
She didn’t park the car when she got to the hospital. She pulled into the ambulance bay and yelled at an orderly she saw going in the door. A few moments later he reappeared with a female nurse and they asked questions about what happened as they loaded him onto a gurney. Kat parked the car and went into the front then and spent another twenty minutes filling out paperwork that was bound to cost her a fortune. After she finished, she was told to have a seat and wait. Patience was not her strong suit, but no amount of trying to get into the back seemed to be getting her anywhere. She finally took a seat, as far away from everyone else in the waiting room as she could get, and before long her memories wandered back to that fateful day…the one that put the crack in the foundation of her and her father’s relationship and led them to where they were now…on the verge of total collapse.
4
Katrina was sound asleep when the doorbell rang. She woke with a start at the sound, sitting straight up in her bed. The television in her room was still on and there was a cartoon playing, loudly. She slipped out from underneath the covers, shutting the TV off with the remote as she got up. She pulled back the curtain that covered her second-story window and looked out. A police car sat at the curb in front of their house. She could see nosy Mrs. Preston across the street, standing in her front yard in her robe, staring at their house. Katrina didn’t like her. She had heard her mother say on more than one occasion that the woman thought she was better than them. Katrina wasn’t exactly sure what that meant at seven years old, but she knew it made her mother feel bad and that was enough to make her angry.
She put the curtain down and slipped on her own robe and slippers before padding quietly down the stairs. She could hear male voices…and it sounded like someone was crying. When she reached the first-floor landing, she could see two men, one in a police uniform and one in a suit, standing in the living room with their backs to her. Her father sat on the couch with his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking and the crying noises were coming from him. She was scared and confused immediately. She’d never seen her father cry.
“Sir, I know this is hard, but can you tell me when the last time was that you saw your wife?”
His wife? They were talking about her mother. As her father pulled his head up, Katrina backed up the stairs until she was out of sight. Then she turned and ran up, going straight to her parents’ room. When she threw open the door, she called out for her mother. There was no answer and the bed didn’t look like it had even been slept in. Katrina ran into the master bathroom. There was no one there either. She turned around and ran out the door and back down the stairs. This time when she got to the bottom she heard her father, still crying, telling the cop that this was all his fault. She walked into the living room and the man in the police uniform was the first to notice her.
“Hi. What’s your name?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“Kat…baby…go back up to your room and watch cartoons. When Daddy finishes with these men, I’ll be up to talk to you.” Dillon was trying to wipe away his tears, but his face was stained with them and his voice shaky. But what really stood out to Katrina was the fact that he was fully dressed. Dillon usually worked at the bar until after closing time and he never got up early, and even if he had that morning, why was he still dressed in the clothes he was wearing the night before?
“Where’s Momma?”
“Katrina, please.”
“Sir, is it okay if I talk to your daughter?” the man in the suit asked.
“No. She’s only seven years old.”
“Dad, what is going on? Where’s Momma?”
The two men and Katrina were all staring at Dillon. He broke down crying again. Finally, in sobbing gasps he said, “Baby…Momma is in heaven now…”
“What? Momma died? How? Dad, what happened?” Katrina was screaming, Dillon was crying, and the two men, the cop and the one she found out later was a detective, just stood there in the middle of the living room. That was the beginning of the nightmare, but it only got worse from there.
“Miss Brown?” Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the woman at the desk. She got up and went over. “Your father is awake and you can go back now.”
Kat forced out a curt “thanks” to the woman who had threatened to call security on her only an hour before, and she was buzzed through the door. The ER was packed and chaotic, and she found Dillon still on the gurney, parked in the hallway between two doors. He had an IV with yellow liquid going into his arm, a blood pressure cuff on the other arm, and a bunch of EKG wires sticking out of the hospital gown they had him in. He had his eyes closed. “Hey,” she said.
Dillon opened his eyes and looked at his daughter. At first he looked confused, but then he tried to smile. “Hey, Kitty-Kat.”
She looked at his head. It had a thick bandage on it where the blood had been pouring out earlier. “Are you going to live?”
Dillon chuckled and coughed. “If I say yes will you be mad?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hell no. I drove you all the way here and left those losers back at the bar in charge of our money and alcohol. If you died after all of that I might have brought you back and killed you.”
He chuckled again and then his face fell and he said, “I’m sorry, Kitty-Kat.”
“‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t make it better, Dillon. You’ve been saying you were sorry since I was seven years old.”
&n
bsp; The sadness turned to pain. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “You still think…?”
“We’re not going to talk about that here,” she cut him off. “Did they say when you could get out of here?”
He shook his head and winced. “No. They haven’t told me anything.”
Kat looked around until she found a nurse to flag down. “This is my father. Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ll get Dr. Keller for you.”
Fifteen minutes passed before a young man in green scrubs approached them. He was smoking hot. The kind of hot that made Kat’s knees weak and her pussy throb. The scrubs were stretched across a wide chest and the short sleeves clung to a pair of incredibly muscular arms. A red and orange tribal band peeked out from below one of the sleeves. His chin was covered in stubble a shade darker than the messy light blond hair on his head and his hazel eyes were slightly bloodshot. Kat’s first thought was how badly she’d like to slide her tongue across the full lips that the stubble surrounded.
“Hi there, I’m Dr. Keller.”
Kat froze and stared down at his hand. What the fuck? This is a doctor? She’d thought maybe he was some hot nurse that took the boards after a stint as a medic in the army or something. This was a guy she’d pick up in a bar and take home for an afternoon or evening delight. She liked bikers and working-class men. When she was in Hollywood she avoided the producers and directors and even the actors…she liked the guys that got their hands dirty…hot, masculine men. This guy didn’t look at all like a doctor. She could totally imagine him with his hands dirty.
She looked up into his sexy eyes as she took the hand he was still holding out. He didn’t have that soft, pasty grip like most doctors had. His handshake was firm and strong and she was imagining his hands all over her body. Fuck. “You’re a doctor?” she blurted out as she dropped his hand. She was afraid she’d do or say something really stupid if she didn’t stop touching him. He grinned, and anything left solid inside of her turned to mush.
“Yes, ma’am, last time I checked,” he told her with a wink. Jesus, he’s trying to kill me, that’s what he’s trying to do. As he turned to look at Dillon, Kat studied his profile and again decided that there was no way he was a real doctor. He could absolutely play one on TV though. “How are you feeling, Mr. Brown?”
Dillon gave him a thumb up sign. “I’m doing great, Doc. Whatever you gave me….”
“Excuse me,” Kat interrupted. “Seriously, you’re a doctor? When did you graduate medical school? When you were fourteen?”
The doctor laughed. Kat’s body overreacted to that too. Shit. “I assure you, Miss Brown, I’m old enough to be a doctor. Now, about your father here. We put a few stitches in that head wound. It’s pretty shallow. Head wounds tend to bleed a whole lot, but liver failure can also cause problems with clotting….”
“He has cirrhosis,” Kat said.
Patiently, the doctor said, “Yes, of course, the cirrhosis is what led to the liver failure. What I am trying to convince Mr. Brown is that his continued drinking will get him passed over on the transplant list…”
“Wait, excuse me? A transplant?” She looked at Dillon. He was looking down at his hands. He’d told her that he had cirrhosis, but had led her to believe it was curable. She morbidly joked about his dying, but she had no idea that it was the truth. “His liver doesn’t work at all?”
The doctor looked at Dillon. It was apparent from the look on his face that he’d thought Kat was already informed. “Mr. Brown, do you want me to share your medical information with your daughter?”
“I moved thousands of miles and gave up my life to be here,” Kat said, before Dillon had a chance to say anything. “I think I just might deserve to know the truth.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry, Kitty-Kat.”
“Bull shit! If you didn’t want me to worry, you wouldn’t have called me to come home in the first place. You love it when I worry about you because it’s the only emotion besides anger you can provoke in me anymore. Were you afraid I wouldn’t come if you told me you were imminently dying? What the hell kind of monster do you think I am?”
“Maybe I should give you two a minute,” the doctor said.
“No!” Dillon and Kat yelled at him at the same time. Dillon didn’t want to be alone with Kat…because admittedly, she could sometimes be a little mean. She just shamelessly didn’t want the doctor to leave. He cocked a blond eyebrow and Kat felt her face go hot. She was sure that he wasn’t impressed with her the way she was with him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, in a more even tone. “I just…I guess that I didn’t realize how bad this was. Can you please explain it to me?” The doctor looked at Dillon and he nodded.
“The yellowing in Mr. Brown’s eyes is called jaundice. That’s because of the build-up of bilirubin in his system. He has a lot of bruising on his arms and legs which is another sign of end stage liver disease. His liver is distended and there’s fluid building up in his abdomen. His blood is not clotting like it should be. These are all signs that he’s in the end stages. The blood work he had done at his last doctor’s visit was not good either. He’s been placed on the transplant list…but as long as he continues to drink, he’s not going to be considered a good candidate for a transplant.”
Kat’s first impulse was to tell Dillon this was just one more thing he was going to screw up because he couldn’t stay sober and deal with reality. Instead…she decided to do what she did when she needed to escape reality. Dillon drank. Kat had sex. She knew exactly who she wanted to have sex with and she planned on giving that a shot first. She wasn’t worried, however, because if that didn’t work out any bar in town would do.
5
Kat went back down to the ER, and it seemed that it was going to be her lucky night. The good Dr. Keller was saying goodnight to his co-workers on his way out the door. She followed a few feet behind him and another doctor as they walked toward the parking lot. When he broke from his colleague to head toward the street she said, “Dr. Keller!”
He turned around and when she stepped under the streetlight, he smiled. Kat let her eyes run the length of him again, lingering on his hands this time. He had big, strong hands, and she bet he knew exactly what to do with them. “Miss Brown. Is everything okay?”
“It’s Kat,” she said, “And everything is fine. I just wanted to thank you, and apologize again for…well, Dillon and I don’t always see eye to eye, but we shouldn’t have argued in front of you like that.”
His sexy lips fought another smile. “Illness brings out the stress in people, families especially. I don’t judge.”
“Thank you,” she said. She wondered what he’d say if she just told him outright what she wanted. In a different setting…a bar or club…she’d have no problem doing that. But this was a doctor, and they were on his turf. She couldn’t do it. “I should let you get home to your family.”
“I’m a locum tenens, actually,” he said. Kat must have looked as clueless as she felt because he clarified by saying, “I’m only here on temporary assignment. My residence is in Northern California, but I don’t spend a lot of time there. I travel most of the year, taking assignments as short as a week and as long as six months sometimes. I don’t have a family…yet…so I figured that now was the time to get the traveling out of my system.”
“That sounds like fun,” she said. He didn’t live close by…that made Kat want to fuck him even more. She loved the ones she could easily walk away from. Those were the only kind that she fucked anymore. “How long are you here?”
“Tonight was my last night. I’ve been here for two months. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll catch a flight to Denver.”
“Last night on the east coast then,” she said. “That might just call for a drink.”
He smiled. “It might just. What did you have in mind?”
“Where are you staying?”
“At the Residence Inn over there across the street.”
&
nbsp; “Nice,” she said. Convenient. “Does it have a bar in the lobby? I’m buying.”
“Afraid not. Vending machines only. But…it does have a kitchenette and my refrigerator is well-stocked with beer.”
“Well, since you’re leaving tomorrow, you’ll probably have to drink that beer tonight so it doesn’t go to waste.”
“True story. Maybe you’d like to join me? I’d hate to have to drink it all by myself.”
“If it would help you,” she said with a grin. He grinned back and started walking. She fell into step beside him, almost having to run to keep up with his long stride. When they reached the crosswalk, he slid his arm around her as they crossed the street. A gentleman…not something Kat was used to, or comfortable with. He kept his hand on the small of her back and led her into the lobby of the Inn. It was late and except for the young kid at the reception desk, it was empty. The kid barely looked up from his phone as they made their way to the elevator. Once they were inside, the doctor pressed the number three. As soon as the doors slid closed, Kat knew that she’d picked a winner. The good doctor wrapped her up in a bear hug and pushed her back into the wall. He covered her lips with his full, sexy ones and kissed her hard. Those lips felt just as good as she’d imagined they would, and damn, did he know what to do with his tongue. She was almost disappointed when the elevator dinged, signaling that they were on his floor. He tried to walk her out backwards with their lips and bodies still pressed together, but Kat pushed against his chest and broke the kiss. “In the room,” she said. She didn’t kiss, touch, or show affection in public…it just wasn’t her thing.
The doctor didn’t seem bothered by it. He took her by the hand and led her to the room at the far end of the long hall. He slipped the key card in the door and the light flashed green. Once the door was pushed open, he reached around and flipped on a light, illuminating the little kitchenette they stepped into. He closed the door behind them and when she heard it click, she got that feeling in the pit of her stomach, warning her that going to hotels with strangers was a bad idea. But this was what she did. This was how she got off and spent a few hours at a time, forgetting about her shitty life. She ignored the warning and when he reached to open the refrigerator, she put her hand out and stopped him. “I don’t want a beer,” she said.
